How can we move forward

posted by Chuck Hennemann | 53pt
February 10, 2017

Professor Wolff – I really would love for a large portion of the United States to switch to democratic worker co-ops. The country may have a chance for a huge change in 2020 assuming Trump fails as I expect. We are very likely to go through a recession and from my point of view it looks like his policies will cause even a greater gap in equality. So here is my idea is to be very pro-business in particular for small business/co-ops.
1) Universal healthcare for all that takes away this cost from companies.
2) Free or low cost higher education
3) Improved infrastructure to make it easier for companies to be successful.
4) Dividends are income and taxed as such. Make taxes more progressive.
5) Public banking that favors democratic worker co-ops. With public banking the cost of the government loans would go down. They can give loans during bad times when loans are most needed. Give guarantee loans to worker co-ops to buy out existing companies if the company can be successful.
My thought is to make it easier for a company to be successful by reducing obstacles. Easier to get capital, educated work force, and reduced cost to do business (healthcare being one of the largest cost). Setting it up like this companies could be successful but if the money went only to a few they would be taxed heavily. But if they spread the wealth then everyone would be better off.
This would also spur the economy because it would give more money to the lower/middle class. When they have more money they buy more and keep the economy moving.
Currently there is way too much private debt. So this is another area that would be nice to look at, but might be asking too much.

Sign in with:

Or sign up:

Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus at UMass Amherst and a visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University in New York. Richard Wolff is also a co-founder and active contributor of his non-profit: Democracy at Work